Unfortunately The Common Point Of View About School Administrators Is Wrong

I received a very good counter comment by an anonymous writer on the blog post "Middletown school officials unhappy with $2.1 mill...": earlier today.

The commenter took exception to what another anonymous commenter had to say about teachers and what the responsibilities of assistant principals are.

I posted below the comment that the first poster left in red below followed by the comment from the person who took exception to their snarky and ill informed opinion of members of the Middletown school system.

I thought it was such a good response that I should post it on here on the main page of the blog for everyone to read:



"I am so tired of all of these things about the teachers. all they do is get get get.

The Superintendent of schools make more than the governer of the state of NJ. thta is crazy. the high schools have more than two assistant princapals, that is nuts!!! how much work can each one possibly do all day. and the taxpayers have to deal with this...."


"Unfortunately, that is a common point of view. “There are too many administrators”, that is the new mantra being repeated by the citizens of Middletown. I hear it everywhere, from all types of people with one exception. People who actually know what administrators do, how important they are to the education of our children and how hard they work. I’ll be kind and just say that the people who think that there are too many administrators in Middletown are either ill informed or uniformed.

“When I went to school we had one principal and one assistant principal” is something else I hear. You know what else you had? Thirty year old textbooks and carburetors in your car. Who do you think is responsible for making sure that our students are keeping our students curriculum current? Assistant principals. Who was responsible for this 30 years ago? Apparently no one.

Superintendents are paid according to the law of supply and demand. Governors are not. Christie will make more on his first book deal than most superintendents could make in ten years. He has already made it clear that New Jersey is not a good place to pursue a teaching career, he is about to make the same thing true for administrators. He will be limiting the amount of compensation that superintendents can receive. He is changing the pension formula so that it is calculated on the last five years of employment instead of the current three years. This will encourage eligible teachers to retire before the law takes effect, saving school districts money now. But the long term effect will be that the highest paid teachers will remain on the job an additional two years in the future, costing districts and the state much more. It is a short-sighted policy. "

What do you think? Feel free to comment as you wish, I'll post whatever comments come in.